Duke sophomore Allison Putterman qualified for the NCAA Championships as a freshman and is looking to earn her second trip to the event.

Photo Courtesy: Duke Photography

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DURHAM, N.C. – The Duke fencing team will take 20 fencers to the 2009 Atlantic South Regional Fencing Meet on Saturday, March 7, in Haverford, Pa., on the campus of Drew University.

The Atlantic South Regionals serve as the qualifier for the NCAA Championships, will take place on March 19-22 at Penn State in State College, Pa.

Nine Duke women’s fencers and 11 men will make the trip to Regionals, including men’s foil Dorian Cohen, men’s saber Peter Truszkowski and women’s foil Allison Putterman, who all advanced to the NCAA Championships in 2008. Cohen and Truszkowski earned All-America honors last season after earning top-10 finishes at the NCAA Championships and will look to build on those outings this year. Putterman, meanwhile, took seventh in her first Atlantic/South Regional as a freshman last season on the way to a 19th-place outing at the NCAA Championships.

The Duke men’s squad (13-5) and the women’s team (9-11) put together impressive bodies of work during the regular season and are coming off winning performances at the Duke Invitational on Feb. 6-7. The men’s team boasts eight fencers with 20 or more wins and five over the 30-win plateau, while the women have seven over the 20-win threshold, including team wins leader Becca Ward (53-2).

Duke’s men’s foil team, which went 18-3 during the regular season, will take four fencers to the Regionals, including Dorian Cohen, Dan Cohen, Eliot Cohen and Nikola Lahcanski. Dan Cohen, a freshman, leads the group with a 42-4 record, while Dorian comes in at 31-14, Eliot at 23-15 and Lahcanski at 21-11.

The epee team will also sent four fencers, including group wins leader Tristan Jones (35-15) and Jonathan parker (28-17). Representing the Duke men’s saber squad will be team captain and two-time All-America Peter Truszkowski, who has put together a 36-13 record, and teammates Loki Stewart (32-16) and Blake Horowitz (11-16).

From the women’s team will be sabers Becca Ward, team captain Jessica Hancock (28-19), Ashley Donald (31-27) and Margot Mausner (9-12). That group went 17-3 during the regular season, which was the best record on the women’s team.

Also from the women’s foil squad will be Putterman (22-18), Dana Rosen (35-22) and Sasha Stein (17-14). From the women’s epee squad are Nicole Bloom (25-26) and Erin Pytel (22-31).